Times 27,059: Ocean’s 15×15

Author   VerlainePosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
I did this on paper and with interruptions so have no time to offer you, but I seem to remember getting off to a slow start, though things picked up later; I’ve just checked the Snitch and it does look like it was a bit over the average difficulty, entirely appropriately for a Friday, well done all concerned.

I must say I enjoyed it a lot in the parsing – maybe I’m in a good mood this morning but there are a lot of playful touches that made me think the setter was having fun, and that’s always good. At least two viable candidates for WOD in OFFICIALESE and AREOPAGITE; curious grid, though the double unches weren’t a cause for any frustration and despair in my case at least; LOI 20ac whose sense needed to be picked apart very carefully before I was confident in my answer.

Much enjoyed overall then, thanks setter! Oh, as a last point, can anyone tell me why we never bat an eyelid at “the French” or “good Scottish” or “rhino Swahili” in crossword clues? The device is clearly an important part of any setter’s arsenal and I am very glad that it exists, but if some said “what is LE” and you answered “the French”, without even a comma or dash, I think you’d get a funny look… but have I been missing a simple explanation of the practice, all these years?

ACROSS
1 Bird sank into water in America (4)
DOVE – a homograph of the quaint American word for “dived”.

4 Scoundrel to attest against old American, without much substance (10)
CADAVEROUS – CAD AVER against O US, [scoundrel | attest ; old | American].

9 Like a picture being restored that’s unorthodox (3-3-4)
OFF-THE-WALL – you generally don’t leave a picture hanging while you’re restoring it.

10 Stand at funeral? It’s very cold, not dry (4)
BIER – BI{tt}ER [very cold, minus TT for teetotal]. “Stand” is not a verb here, but a noun for the coffin to rest on.

11 Son, bothered and panicky (6)
SCARED – S CARED [son | bothered]

12 Good Scottish church in which there’s a new leadership (8)
GUIDANCE – GUID [Good Scottish] + CE [church], in where there’s A N [a | new]

14 Soldier‘s contribution to newspaper article? (4)
PARA – a newspaper article is made up of multiple para(graph)s.

15 Most senior worker, I sit alongside the dealer (6,4)
ELDEST HAND – [most senior | worker]. I’ve played a lot of cards in my time but DNK this; but apparently it’s a term for the person to dealer’s left who gets dealt the first card.

17 Dogged act secures period of office now (10)
DETERMINED – DEED [act] secures TERM IN [period office | now]. “Now” as in “fashionable”.

20 Honest attempt to make the grade after setback (4)
GOOD – GO [attempt] + reversed DO [make the grade, after “setback”]

21 One liquid drops into another, yours truly imagines (8)
METHINKS – INK drops into METHS [(two) liquid(s)]

23 Room in vehicle lined with length of material? (6)
CELLAR – CAR [vehicle] lined with ELL [length of material?]. An ell, like a cubit, is about the length of an arm from elbow to tip of middle finger, and so was very convenient for use in the textiles industry.

24 Sister admits nothing? That could be proper (4)
NOUN – NUN [sister] “admits” O [nothing], with a grammartastic definition part.

25 Old Greek councillor in new opera housed in a holiday home (10)
AREOPAGITE – (OPERA*) [“new”], housed in A GITE [a | holiday home]. The Areopagus, or Crag of Ares, was an outcrop in Athens where they held a court “for trying deliberate homicide, wounding and religious matters, as well as cases involving arson or olive trees” – all the most serious felonies, in other words. That’s all I needed, but you slick youngsters with your hipster “paperbacks” jammed into the pockets of your newfangled Nehru jackets may have been led to the answer via John Milton’s “Areopagitica”, which I understand to be a recent bestseller on the subject of the Leveson Inquiry.

26 Roughed-up motorway said to need engineers brought in (10)
MISTREATED – M1 STATED to need RE brought in [motorway | said ; engineers]

27 Register for work (4)
TILL – double def, where TILL is work as in “work the soil”.

DOWN
2 If I lose face going wrong, out comes the gobbledegook (11)
OFFICIALESE – (IF I LOSE FACE*) [“going wrong”]

3 Get rid of old lover, bore, embracing boy (9)
EXTIRPATE – EX + TIRE embracing PAT [old lover ; bore ; boy]

4 Conservative leader starts to look enthusiastic in constituency (7)
CHEADLE – C HEAD [conservative | leader] + L{ook} E{nthusiastic}. Cheadle is a UK parliamentary constituency up Manchester way, lost by those haphazard Lib Dems to the Tories since the 2015 general election.

5 Defenders got bad with age and didn’t move quickly enough (7,4,4)
DRAGGED ONE’S FEET – (DEFENDERS GOT + AGE*) [“bad”]

6 Wicked no end, group of students hanging round one capital city (7)
VILNIUS – VIL{e} + NUS hanging around I [wicked; group of students ; one]. My new Lithuanian colleague comes in handy again.

7 Stars at leaving speech (5)
ORION – AT leaving OR{at}ION [speech]

8 Material coming out shortly, revolutionary (5)
SERGE – EGRES{s} is coming out “shortly”, then revolve it.

13 I cannot be described as such (11)
CONSONANTAL – cryptic definition. I is not consonantal but, of course, vocalic.

16 Most outstanding feature on land is school (9)
HIGHLIGHT – on LIGHT [land] is HIGH [school]

18 Wise man wrapping old set of holy books in something artistic (7)
MONTAGE – MAGE [wise man] “wrapping” O NT [old | set of holy books]. There is almost nothing more artistic than e.g. the training scenes in The Karate Kid (1984).

19 Creature with several legs as before walked up (7)
DECAPOD – DO [= ditto = as before] + PACED [walked], the whole “up” or reversed.

21 Drop of liquid: you may get this in bar (5)
MINIM – double def, more or less, as a minim is both 1/60 of a fluid drachm and also a half-note in a musical bar.

22 First character to go under in river trips (5)
TOURS – take the river STOUR, then sink its first letter all the way to the bottom.

87 comments on “Times 27,059: Ocean’s 15×15”

  1. 50 mins with a Fat Rascal (hoorah)
    Hmmm…. Consonantal isn’t a word I think I will use often.
    Most trouble with Cheadle (although the parsing turns out to be very straightforward).
    Mostly I liked the two DOs (make the grade and as before).
    Thanks setter and V.

    Altogether now….
    So tonight gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf
    And just enjoy yourself
    Groove, let the madness in the music get to you
    Life ain’t so bad at all
    If you live it off the wall

    1. I just had to Google Fat Rascal and it appears you are one from your avatar! I’m peckish now.
      1. If ever you are near York, Harrogate or Northallerton, I recommend you pay a visit to Bettys Café Tearooms and treat yourself to one. If Northallerton, also visit Lewis & Cooper.
        1. Betty’s is already on my “to do” list. I hold you entirely responsible for the threat to my diet !
  2. Methinks METHINKS must be word of the day, no? Like myrtilus I thought CONSONANATAL a particularly useless word. I can’t think of a sentence in which it might be used practically. And if ‘I cannot be described as such’, how are we to describe I? Is it vowelal?
    1. I was sure I put a subtle clue as to the identity of consonantal’s vowelly counterpart somewhere in my blog, for the careful reader…
  3. Thanks V and setter. Quite hard for me, taking 40m but I still don’t really see ‘term in’ as ‘period of office now’. Is not the ‘now’ in the clue redundant?
    1. Sorry, it seems my notation may be overly subtle! When I do a parallel bar ( | ) it’s meant to indicate a clear separation between two parts. So term = “period of office” and in = “now”, as in, I *think* “mini-skirts are so now!” But I could be wrong about that last bit.
  4. 21:01 with PARA and GOOD my last two in… taking a while figure that last one out. AREOPAGITE only known from previous crossword appearances. I share the misgivings about CONSONANTAL. Not a word I’ve ever seen used, I think. METHINKS my COD.
    1. “Consonantal” isn’t going to turn up in many casual conversations, but surely it is useful for technical purposes… for example, Grimm’s Law of Consonantal Shift?
              1. If i suffered from inconsonance and dieresis they’d put me in a home.
                1. Surely you mean “they’d put me in an öë”

                  Edited at 2018-06-08 12:43 pm (UTC)

  5. I was enjoying this one and seemed to be heading for only a little over my target 30 minutes until I reached the SE corner where I came completely unstuck and ended up resorting to aids for the unknown Greek thing and CONSONANTAL. I thought the ‘I’ reference was going to be something really clever that I would kick myself when I saw the answer, but no, it was just another complete obscurity clued without any assistance to be had from wordplay.

    Although I guessed GOOD on the strength of GO/attempt, I wasn’t totally convinced either by the definition nor the second part of the wordplay. I wasn’t that keen on PARA as ‘contribution to newspaper article’ either.

    MINIM as a drop of liquid was unknown but the musical reference was clear for the other definition.

    I’m a bit surpised by the comment about the absence of punctuation in ‘the French’ etc, as one of the first tips on cryptic solving I was given was to ignore punctuation as it’s usually put in to mislead. ‘The French’ is just an example in reverse where punctuation is omitted for the same purpose.

    Edited at 2018-06-08 07:40 am (UTC)

    1. You could be right about that last bit. It just seems that, if you didn’t know crosswords at all and had to ask a veteran “what’s going on here”, this is the thing that’s most “oh, that’s just how it works in crosswords, it happens a lot and you’ll get used it” rather than “just say what you see, and all will become clear”.
      1. I also have my doubts about the justification for “the French” — it seems to have crept in as a sloppy variation of the entirely reasonable “French the” (which can be conveniently concealed in a surface such as “Name the research facility the French rejected”). Surely no non-crossword people would regard “the French” as a reasonable paraphrase of “the French word for ‘the'”.
        1. But you might accept ‘the, French’ or even ‘the (French)’, and as jackkt points out the convention is that punctuation can be ignored or removed at will.
          1. What are some other (common) examples of punctuation being ignored at will, to this extent?
            1. Hmm. Good question.
              Of course in the other example we discussed recently, capitalisation of non-proper nouns vs uncapitalisation of proper nouns, punctuation is absolutely not ignored.
              Edit: actually is capitalisation punctuation or spelling?
              Edit again: perhaps capital letters for proper nouns is spelling, whereas capital letters at the beginning of sentences is punctuation, in which case this is another example of punctuation being ignored.

              Edited at 2018-06-08 11:04 am (UTC)

    2. ‘Do’ in the sense of ‘make the grade’, as in ‘I got 65 in the test’ / ‘Sorry, but I don’t think that will do’ seems fine to me.
  6. 39 minutes. LOI CONSONANTAL. I had a bee in my bonnet that ‘I’ stood for island and the answer was CONTINENTAL, but GOOD and CELLAR shook me out of that. DOVE for DIVED was used in my Lancashire youth too, I think. I had relations in CHEADLE, so I wanted that to be the answer. I’d put GIFT for PARA initially, the soldier being a GI and the paper the FT, but OFFICIALESE straightened me out. COD to AREOPAGITE, if only because I got it early. I preferred the Greek Islands when GITEs were fashionable, so I’ve never stopped in one. ELDEST HAND wasn’t known but cryptic led either to that or OLDEST, and I wasn’t losing my CHEADLE. Quite tough. Thank you V and setter.

    Edited at 2018-06-08 09:06 am (UTC)

  7. Fell foul of one of those short but tricky clues, going with TELL instead of TILL. I probably wouldn’t get anywhere arguing the toss with the Crossword Editor, but I don’t think it’s a million miles away from being an acceptable answer (but yes, I should have realised there was a much more obviously correct one).
    1. I can’t see how TELL would pass muster as a solution – could anyone clarify?
      1. Tell=register, as in the sort of tellers who count votes, or, indeed, being able to “tell what this clue means”, tell=work, as in “his efforts to think of a solution to this clue began to tell”. (As I said, I’m happy to agree it’s far from a perfect fit, and if I’d thought of TILL first, none of it would have occurred to me at all…)

        Edited at 2018-06-08 10:07 am (UTC)

  8. Another, I’m afraid, where I didn’t make any great effort to finish. I got the wrong end of the solving stick on the CHEADLE clue, not helped by not really knowing it was a place, let alone a constituency.

    I also failed to get TILL, partly through not considering the machine meaning of ‘register’, partly through being tempted (like Tim) by TELL, partly because of doubts over CONSONANTAL.

    ELDEST HAND in with a bemused shrug, and AREOPAGITE rather slowly assembled from its parts, despite having stood on the rock a couple of times (edit: not, I hasten to add, for setting fire to an olive tree. I’m not a monster)

    Edited at 2018-06-08 08:49 am (UTC)

    1. I do hope this week’s run of crosswords has not threatened to extinguish your newly-rekindled spark of enthusiasm for this fine art. As the great David Soul so memorably sang: “Don’t give up on us, baby, We’re still worth one more try…”
      1. I’m not overly enthused right now, and my warrior gene seems to have gone AWOL — I hope it’ll come back in time for the morning session of the champs — but I’m taking an easygoing approach to the puzzles. If I’m not really enjoying one, I don’t spend too long on it, just say ‘meh’ and move on. TfTT’s always fun, regardless. Where else would I be reminded of David Soul singing bitter-sweet ballads in a nice jumper?
        1. I can’t see anything wrong with saying ‘meh’ and moving on if that’s what you feel like doing. Seems like a perfectly sane approach to me. And one I can’t see myself adopting any time soon.
          1. 🙂

            btw, is your champs berth secure for this year? If so, which heat? I don’t want to miss you this time.

            1. It is. I’m in the second heat, which is a bit annoying actually: I much prefer to be in the first one.
              1. Not to worry. We’ll have a glass of something celebratory (or consolatory) waiting for you later. Will attempt to stay sober at least until the second sitting’s out 🙂

                I requested the a.m. heat this time, having struggled with the later time last year.

                1. I requested the a.m. heat too! Oh well, this way should be good for my liver at least…
              2. Being in the first one was pretty awesome last year when I found I wasn’t in the finals, and pretty annoying the year before when I had to anxiously climb the pub walls for hours and hours without the benefit of a drink. Clearly I’d better pull another “devonport” this year.
                1. If I ever made the final I would definitely want to be in the later heat. My preference for the earlier one is probability-weighted.
                  1. Magoo seems to have sewn up a permanent seat in the afternoon heat, so I try to look at it as competing for one of twelve slots rather than one of eleven, though I expect it’s not quite so mathematically simple.
              3. Get yourself moved. I was allocated the 1st prelim but requested a change so I didn’t have to be up with the larks to get a stupidly early train down from Yorkshire. It only took three attempts to get an acknowledgment and satisfaction.
                1. After some years of entering the second heat, I switched last year and failed to finish for the first time in ages. It didn’t help that I sailed through the second session puzzles when they appeared later ! Back to the “Second Sitting for the Last Supper” this year !
                  1. My reply was actually to James, who appeared to want to change (hard to tell on this site, I know). You can still sort the beer though:-)
  9. Odd, really, but I thought this really easy, and was miffed to be disturbed by a telephone call after the top half flew in, and like an Austin Maxi of mine that periodically stalled with a flooded carburettor, it took a while to get going again, so finished 17 minutes and a few minims.
    I shrugged off the less-than-well-knowns – MINIM the liquid, ELDEST HAND (really?), CONSONANTAL (double really?) and AREOPAGITE (goodness, wordplay was kind on that one) and nearly missed TOURS in my expectation of an early bath.
    Just wavelength, then, but having taken up the Quickie recently (I’m time rich and mobility poor) I did find myself counting the squares to make sure I hadn’t hit the wrong button.
    I’d have posted this sooner,but I made the mistake of looking up Milton’s “Areopagitica” and got sidetracked. Thanks ( Ithink) V for the more than usually diverting exposition.
    1. At least by knowing that one I had one over on some of the former Classics students who frequent this place. I learnt it in my early youth playing whist with aged aunts.
  10. ‘Eldest hand’ is probably dated now but is used regularly in Hoyle for the first to play in a card game.
  11. Pleased to have put this to bed in 38 mins, when the consensus here is that it was quite a tricky puzzle. I parsed almost all as I solved them, except for TOURS which was biffed but clearly correct: thanks for the clarification, V. Yes, my passing acquaintance with Milton’s poem (from student days) has turned out to be quite useful for Times crosswords recently. DNK eldest hand or minim as a liquid measure (but the checkers sorted it for me).
    A most enjoyable puzzle; thanks, setter. And of course an excellent blog. Thank you.
    [On edit: this from Doolin, on a caravan site that looks across to the Cliffs of Moher, on a glorious morning — over three weeks in SW Ireland and we’ve hardly had a drop of rain!]

    Edited at 2018-06-08 10:00 am (UTC)

  12. I had TELL too, and considering some of the mental leaps we’ve had to make in recent days, I still think it’s a valid alternative even if TILL is perhaps a better fit.
  13. 33:32, but with TELL for TILL. As Tim said earlier, it certainly can be shoehorned into the wordplay, although TILL may be a better fit. After some of the mental gymnastics required in yesterday’s puzzle, it would’ve taken some discounting once thought of. AREOPAGITE was in a fairly recent puzzle, so with the generous wordplay went in without a qualm. CONSONANTAL was a MER but considered better than CONSONANTIC, and ELDEST HAND was from worplay and crossers. Liked METHINKS. Thanks setter and V.
  14. 22′ but with no less than 3 wrong, including TICK for TILL (it’s what makes you tick), and the invented CONSONANTIC to cross.

    Thanks verlaine and setter.

  15. 38 minutes, with 22dn LOI, as I’d biffed MALTREATED at 26ac. Also spent a while worrying about TELL for 27ac, but eventually the cash register came to mind. Couldn’t parse 16dn satisfactorily – I didn’t get school=high, so was thinking HIGH could be the outstanding feature (after 20ac forced me to reject HEAD) which made ‘school’ the definition somehow.
  16. I almost put TELL in, but wasn’t happy with the ‘register’ meaning. To me TELL just means ‘count’, which is distinct from ‘register’. Very close though.
    1. I can sort of see “the blow really told” as “the blow really registered”, though on the other hand maybe that’s quite spurious, as it would kind of imply that telling a story and hearing it were the same thing…
      1. This would basically be the same meaning of the word, which is probably not banned but is unsatisfactory for a DD I’d say.
        1. I looked at it from the point of view of, for example, telling Parliament of an interest, ie registering it.
          1. For me that doesn’t work: the synonym is ‘telling of‘, not ‘telling’.

            Edited at 2018-06-08 05:04 pm (UTC)

  17. 22:07. I found this very tricky but I enjoyed it a lot. Some funny words but the wordplay was all quite clear. I needed checking letters to be sure about the last two letters of CONSONANTAL and the first of ELDEST HAND.
    My spellcheck doesn’t like CONSONANTAL: it wants to change it to POSTCONSONANTAL!
    1. As in “the refrain of Old McDonald Had A Farm is postconsonantal”, I suppose.
  18. 36 minutes and lots of fun. Any crossword that can generate such a cross-section of comments must have something going for it. COD to GOOD.
  19. In a strange coincidence, I’ve been listening to this lovely album all this morning, and just realised that one of its best songs begins:

    Flight is a beautiful word
    Flowered with consonance
    That’s what I’ll follow
    Forever
    I am a beautiful bird
    Fluttered and floating
    Swollen and hollowed
    For heaven

    Nice!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9Ppc8ToFO8

    Edited at 2018-06-08 12:49 pm (UTC)

    1. My 8-year-old son is very keen on music, and particularly keen on writing and playing what he calls ‘rock songs’. I love this, and I try to be as supportive and encouraging as possible, whilst guiding him towards some concept of what the word ‘song’ means. Having listened to this band I realise I might be pushing him too hard.
  20. Despite finishing in 17:20 I didn’t enjoy this very much.

    FOI BIER, but progress wasn’t forthcoming.

    DNK CONSONANTAL, AREOPAGITE, or ELDEST HAND (luckily I DO know Cheadle, as it’s only 6 miles from me).

    Biffed ORION (thanks for today’s “duh” moment V !)

    Eventually came to a standstill in the SE corner, where I couldn’t decide between HIGHLIGHT and headlight, and couldn’t nail LOI GOOD until after I’d alpha-trawled “A-O-” in vain.

    So not a hit with me, despite COD OFF-THE-WALL, and near miss METHINKS.

  21. Like Sotira I didn’t care for this much. I thought Areopagite was going to be the stupidest word of the week until I got to Consonantal. 26 mins or so.
  22. Strange to have a constituency as an answer but just to be accurate, Patsy Calton, a teacher who I used to work with, held the seat for the Lib Dems at the 2015 General Election but died of cancer a few weeks later and in the by-election the seat was won by the Conservatives.
    A great lady.
    Lisiate
    1. A sad story and a no doubt much missed lady… but wasn’t that more like 2005?
  23. Apolgies it was. I am getting senile and time just flies by. It was seeing Cheadle appear in a most unexpected place.
  25. Thanks, I’ll try. They never seem to be packed out but I guess no-shows are inevitable.
      1. I have requested a move from afternoon to morning this year, just as I have in the previous two years (asking especially nicely, as I’m sure you would do anyway as a matter of course), and on those occasions it’s never seemed to be a problem with the powers that be; I suspect the editor might reserve the right to insist people stay in their lane, if such tweaks meant one heat contained a disproportionate number of entrants (especially if that concentrated too many of the well-known contenders), but when you are at our level – let’s call it “aspirational” – I don’t think it really matters if a small number of people move between heats…
  26. … and in fact in the 2005 byelection caused by Patsy Calton’s sad death, the Liberal Democrat Mark Hunter retained the seat. He held it till 2015, which is when the Conservatives finally regained it after a 14 year hiatus.
    I’m supposed to be an expert on UK constituencies, but I do think the clue was tough on our UnIted States solvers, who use the word district for their equivalents (and also number them, such as the ‘8th district of Illinois’), and then needed to know a fairly small English town …
    Robert Waller

  27. About 25 minutes to get done, but all correct. Considering what I didn’t know here, that’s pretty good. I learned of the River Stour, wherever it is, I don’t know what a meths is, surprised you folks don’t say DOVE, and I followed wordplay to AREOPAGITE and CHEADLE though both rang vague bells. Also shrugged the shoulders at guid. My computer’s spellcheck doesn’t know them either. Regards to all.
      1. Thanks much. News to me, and I shall try to remember. In vain, probably.
  28. DNF. Bah! Had to look up eldest hand to get my last 3 in, kicked myself straight afterwards. An unknown expression but eldest wrote itself in and – worker dealer hand – the rest was all there for the taking. I can’t get this song out of my head now:

    It’s something daring the consonantal
    A way of dancing that’s really entre-nous

    It’s very subtle the consonantal
    Because it does what you want it to do
    It has a passion the consonantal
    An invitation to moonlight and romance

    It’s quite the fashion the consonantal
    Because you tell of your love while you dance
    Your lips whisper so tenderly
    Her eyes answer your song

    Two bodies swaying the consonantal…..

    At least I think those are the lyrics.

  29. A bit late to the party today, as I needed to leave the house before t’blog was up this morning. Nevertheless, a fun party it was! I stretched out my time to an hour and five to get the last couple—GOOD and CONSONANTAL—and am happy to find myself in good company on those. Not much to add that’s not been said already. Thanks to setter for the fun and V. for the parsings.
  30. I’m late to the party and it makes little difference, but I think the newspaper contribution is a PAR, and the article is A. Thanks for the blog.
    1. Ooh, intriguing suggestion? What is a PAR? A different abbreviation for paragraph? Or something I haven’t thought of yet?
      1. Shorter Oxford has PAR or PAR. as a printing & journalism abbreviation for paragraph, in the sense of “a short article in a newspaper or periodical, with no headline; a printed item of news”.

Comments are closed.